xoJane - J. J. Ulmhttp://www.xojane.com/author/j-j-ulm
enCopyright 2015 Say Media, Inc.http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rssTue, 03 Mar 2015 14:50:10 -0800I’ll Never Go Gray, And It Sucks<!-- tml-version="2" --><div tml-image="ci01bbb11510002a83" tml-image-caption=""><figure><img src="http://a5.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI0ODg4MTE3ODk4NDE3NDI2.jpg" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>I know you’re laughing at the title, because I’ve heard that laugh before. The one that says "You’ll understand when you’re older.”</p><p>I heard that laugh a lot the time I grew a single strand of silver, courtesy of an upper management change at my job that made things unbearably stressful.&nbsp;</p><p>“This job is literally killing me!” I’d tell my friends. “I have a gray hair! I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE A GRAY HAIR!”&nbsp;</p><p>“Oh, it’ll have friends soon enough!” they said, laughing condescendingly. But I wasn’t upset because it was a sign of age. I was upset because it was a sign of overwhelming stress. My best friend plucked it because I wouldn't shut up about it. Now I wish he had left it.&nbsp;</p><p>I’m about to turn 36, and that’s the only gray hair I’ve ever had. After I escaped from that job, it even grew back brown. My mother, at 56, has never even had one. Her mother didn’t go gray until the illness that took her life in her 70s. (My father’s side, for the record, goes salt-and-pepper in their 20s, so I know I don’t take after him.) It’s a “blessing” of genetics, but I’m starting to question how much of a blessing it is.</p><p>It doesn’t help that, regardless of my hair color, I looked 17 at 25 and now look 25 at 35. I live in a big college city and people constantly assume I'm a student. I spent most of my 20s trying to reassure people I was actually legal. I keep my driver’s license handy so I can whip it out as proof that I’m not a kid. A bouncer at a club once was intent on finding the flaw that proved my ID was fake or at the very least belonged to my older sister. A friend who I graduated high school with was, on multiple occasions, mistaken for my father. Another friend joked that he assumed anyone who dated me was a closet pedophile.&nbsp;</p><p>People always said I’d appreciate my youthful looks when I was older, but honestly, I’m still not seeing it.</p><p>Because looking much younger than you are –- not just for a night out partying but every single day -- really, really sucks. There’s a respect that comes with age that I don’t receive. I have an untraditional life -- I’m a lesbian, I’m taking some single time after spending most of my life in serious relationships with men thanks to self-denial, and I just don’t want to have children. Maybe if I had some gray hairs, people who are even younger than me would stop telling me I’ll change my mind and want to settle down to have a family someday.&nbsp;</p><p>No, my sleep-all-day, work-all-night solo lifestyle is the result of conscious decisions based on many years of valid life experience and not just juvenile whim.&nbsp;</p><p>And what do I get out of looking young? Being more attractive to younger men? I’m an introverted lesbian with anxiety disorder. I’d much prefer to be occasionally taken seriously.&nbsp;</p><p>I could live with my baby face if I just had some gray hair to offset it. Most people who look younger than they are eventually get that much to balance it out. But not me. I’m “blessed” with a lifetime of not being taken seriously, of having my choices dismissed, of even getting passed up for promotions because of vague claims that I wasn’t respected enough. Nature, throw me a bone here!</p><p>I know a lot of people, especially women, hate going gray. But I for one could really go for some of that visible aging right about now.</p>I’m “blessed” with a lifetime of not being taken seriously, of having my choices dismissed, of even getting passed up for promotions.http://www.xojane.com/beauty/hair-wont-go-gray
http://www.xojane.com/beauty/hair-wont-go-grayBeautyThu, 09 Oct 2014 13:00:14 -0700J. J. UlmI Think I'm Turning Into A Cranky Old Lady<!-- tml-version="2" --><p></p><div tml-image="ci01bb913f0001efe2"><figure><img src="http://a4.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,w_620/MTI0ODUzMTEzNjQ2NTIyNDQw.png" /></figure></div><p></p><p>I thought leaving my tech support job would would give me a laid-back, zenlike approach to dealing with other people. Boy was I wrong.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure when exactly I went from being a big hippy-dippy lovemuffin to someone who could no longer drive down the street without dropping F-bombs at everyone who dared to drive in front of her. A year ago, I would have said it was my job's fault. I worked in tech support for six years, helping old Southern men who should have retired a decade ago find their Start buttons so they could sell insurance for my corporate overlords. (Protip: It's the thing that says “Start”.)</p><p></p><p>After eight hours of that a day I was, as I loved to say, out of fucks to give. I had no patience whatsoever for stupidity –- or what I perceived as stupidity, which could just as easily be something perfectly reasonable like tiredness or distraction or miscommunication –- and it bled into everything else I tried to do.</p><p></p><p>Shopping became an ordeal, especially since my office job meant I couldn't do it during off hours. Automated check-outs were either the best or the worst thing ever depending on whether they were all being taken up by people who didn't seem to understand basic concepts like barcodes and item limits.</p><p></p><p>Social life? No thanks, I'd rather stay at home with my ferret, who was far less irritating than any friends I could possibly make out there even if his favorite pastime was knocking everything single thing on the coffee table onto the floor.</p><p></p><p>At one point, a friend from my World of Warcraft guild pointed out that if I wanted to go into the big multi-person raid dungeons I was going to have to tolerate at least nine other human beings <em>at the same time</em>, and if I couldn't do that I was going to have to accept that that part of the game wasn't going to work for me.</p><p></p><p>I thought everything would be better once I left that job. I thought my poor battered psyche would heal and I would have the infinite patience and tolerance of a Buddha. I mean, I used to be a kind, generous sort of person. If I'd ever had any spare money to speak of I'd totally have given lots of it to charities! I loved animals, and I thought IT would be a good fit because I was very patient with computers.</p><p></p><p>I was good tolerant left-wing social justice person! All I needed was to make that jump to freelance work where I got to control how much I had to deal with other people -– especially stupid other people with stupid questions that they won't accept my answers for –- and everything would be okay.</p><p></p><p>It turns out that regardless of what race or religion you are, whether you're cis or trans or straight or gay, if you slow down in front of me in traffic to make a right turn you are immediately the worst person in the world and I hate you. Taking too long to pass so I can make a left turn? I am uttering profane curses against your offspring for generations.</p><p></p><p>And it's not just road rage, though my conviction that my ancient Volvo wagon is indestructible makes me far too brave and aggressive behind the wheel. When faced with a bidder on an eBay auction who was dragging his heels sending me money I seriously considered taking his address and finding a site that would send hissing cockroaches to his home.</p><p></p><p>Trips to a very upper-middle-class neighborhood near my apartment pretty much always involve me pulling out my phone to tweet things about capitalist pigs in gigantic SUVs being first against the wall when the revolution comes and how high school Boys' Lacrosse is the sport for jocks too racist for the football team.</p><p></p><p>I actually <em>did</em> end up quitting World of Warcraft in part because I couldn't tolerate nine other human beings at the same time, and I've avoided getting into any other massively multiplayer games since then -– I'll just stick to nice single-player Skyrim, thanks, where the stupidest thing I have to deal with is my in-game companion's programming.</p><p></p><p>I'm rarely mean to anyone's face -– I still try to <em>pretend</em> to be a hippy-dippy lovemuffin -– but the moment I'm out of earshot I spew vitriol worthy of any cranky old lady sitting on her porch yelling at the kids to get off her lawn. And sometimes I <em>am</em> mean to the face of some poor chump who got my order wrong or cut in front of me in line.</p><p></p><p>I used to be too anxious to confront people, but not anymore. I'm still (usually) nice to my BFF-slash-roommate, but that just means he's the one who has to hear me muttering elaborate plans to get revenge on all the people who have...kind of annoyed me a little bit or inconvenienced me for like three seconds.</p><p></p><p>“You are <em>so mean</em>!” he'll tell me as I threaten to run down someone dawdling in the crosswalk in front of Target, pointing out that it probably won't even dent my enormous tank of a car. “Settle down.”</p><p></p><p>If my tiny apartment had a lawn, I'd totally be yelling at kids to get off it. Instead I just get worked up at the neighbors for letting their friends park in my space. IT'S GOT MY APARTMENT NUMBER PAINTED ON IT FOR A REASON, YOU TROGLODYTES!</p><p></p><p>What happened to cause this Pokemon-esque evolution into Crankyoldladychu? Maybe the psychological damage from my tech support job and years of used-book-shop retail before it went deeper than expected. Maybe something about having to talk to stupid people every day without being able to call them out on it broke something inside me.</p><p></p><p>Maybe I'm just old and my lifetime supply of fucks has been depleted. (Yes, I am REALLY FOND of the idea of “giving a fuck” as an actual transaction.) Perhaps in a couple years I'll be writing about finding inner peace and love and all that garbage. Or perhaps I'll be too busy yelling at the people at the next table in the coffee shop who're talking too loud. SHUT UP!</p>What happened to cause this Pokemon-esque evolution into Crankyoldladychu?http://www.xojane.com/fun/my-evolution-into-a-cranky-old-lady
http://www.xojane.com/fun/my-evolution-into-a-cranky-old-ladyFunMon, 19 Aug 2013 12:30:00 -0700J. J. UlmHow Not To Be A Dick To An Introvert<!-- tml-version="2" --><p>I love my friends. I love them so much that I want them to understand that, when I don't want to hang out, it's not because I hate them. It's because I'm an introvert. Please don't be a dick about it.</p><p></p><p></p><div tml-image="ci01bb90dc30019512" tml-image-caption="An introvert in her natural habitat."><figure><img src="http://a4.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI0ODUyNjg5NTE4NDk5MDkw.jpg" /><figcaption>An introvert in her natural habitat.</figcaption></figure></div><p>Introversion is not a mental illness. I know, that may come as a huge surprise to a lot of you extroverts out there, because it certainly&nbsp;gets treated like one. The media loves to talk about how quiet mass-murderers were before they went off the deep end and killed a bunch of people, how they kept to themselves and played a lot of computer games. Of course they do! The media by its nature is run by extroverts, and to them that's totally weird and worth talking about! But it's not totally weird, it's actually perfectly normal.</p><p></p><p>For me, being an introvert is merely one of the colors of my rainbow of eccentricities. It's the one that seems to confuse my friends the most, though. Why don't you want to hang out ALL THE TIME? Why do you sit in the corner playing on your laptop when everyone else is chatting? Why do you need to get away sometimes when we're having a big exciting outing in a loud, busy place? Do you just not like us? That's it, isn't it? You hate us all.</p><p></p><p>We introverts are misunderstood, and we kind of make it worse because we'd rather stay at home and read a book than take the time to explain ourselves to you. But some of us are actually super-interesting people and really good friends! You just have to understand that we're not always speaking the same language as you. Here are some helpful translations.</p><p></p><p><strong>Remember: It's Not You, It's Her.</strong></p><p></p><p>Yes, I know you think it'd be awesome to go out clubbing and maybe hit some bars and have a crazy party night. I don't. I don't think that'd be awesome AT ALL. I, like most introverts, find large social gatherings tiring, and there's got to be a huge payoff (like seeing a favorite band) to make it worthwhile. But it's not because I don't like you! It's not that I don't want to hang out with you! It's just that I don't agree with your idea of “fun” here.</p><p></p><p>For an introvert, the only thing worse than the anxiety of dealing with people when we don't want to is the anxiety of wondering if our friends are going to get all butthurt about it. It's a cruel decision and we hate being forced to decide between our feelings and yours, because we tend to be very picky about our friends and probably wouldn't be talking to you in the first place if we didn't like you and value your friendship. Don't be offended when your introvert friend doesn't want to hang out. Just don't. It's a million times easier for us to say no when we know you understand.</p><p></p><p><strong>So She Doesn't Want To Hang Out Tonight. That Doesn't Mean She Doesn't Want To Hang Out Tomorrow. Or Ever Again.</strong></p><p></p><p>I have had way too many friends who just stopped inviting me places because I said no too many times. It hurts. A LOT. There are some situations introverts are better in than others, and just because I didn't want to go clubbing last weekend absolutely doesn't mean I don't want to go see the opening of the big new superhero movie with you and all our other friends this weekend. It certainly doesn't mean I never want to go see the openings of any big new superhero movies with any of you ever again.</p><p></p><p>Our reasons for not want to go clubbing had nothing to do with you, but if we see you tweeting about all the awesome things you're doing with everyone but us the next week when we really would have liked to come along but you didn't invite us, that problem WILL be with you.</p><p></p><p><strong>Don't Call Her. Text or IM Her.</strong></p><p></p><p>Introverts LOVE the Internet. We can deal with people there on our own terms. I'm far more open and less awkward on the Internet than I am in person because I can take the time to think about what I want to say and how I want to say it. I'm far more likely to babble incoherently and saying something weird and stupid when pressed into real-time conversation. I'm also far more likely to end up being good friends with someone I've met or at least primarily spoken to online because they're less likely to think I'm a gibbering idiot. It's not that we need a buffer from face-to-face conversation, it's a matter of allowing us time to think. And it's much less rude of us to get up and get a fresh cup of coffee in the middle of an online conversation than in a face-to-face one.</p><p></p><p>Text messages are good for the same reason: They give us time to think about what we want to say before we say it.</p><p></p><p><strong>Understand That She's Not Good With Last-Minute Plans</strong></p><p></p><p>Introverts, even those of us who hardly ever plan anything, are much more likely to decline an invitation if it's a last-minute thing. See, even if we don't have plans, they're still our not-plans, and they probably didn't involve much in the way of interpersonal interactions away from the buffer of the Internet.</p><p></p><p>As I said before, for an introvert large social gatherings are tiring, so we need to be able to prepare. If plans are sprung on us at the last minute we aren't prepared and we'll either know we should decline or we'll go and be miserable the whole time.</p><p></p><p><strong>Don't Assume She's Depressed</strong></p><p></p><p>I hung out with a lady who was a licensed social worker who'd get all concerned when I'd step outside alone during parties, like, “Oh no, something's terribly wrong, she wants to be ALONE!” You'd think she'd have known better, but maybe you can get licensed without learning that being an introvert is actually totally normal.</p><p></p><p>Yes, introverts are less likely to describe themselves as “happy,” but that's not because we're all a bunch of mopers who just want to stay home crying and writing bad emo poetry while we listen to The Smiths. (We only do that sometimes.) Nor is it a sign that we're genuinely clinically depressed.</p><p></p><p>By nature, introverts are more introspective, so rather than greeting the world with a knee-jerk cheer that everything is rainbows and unicorns, we like to think for a bit about whether everything truly is rainbows and unicorns. And, you know, once you think about it, there's still social injustice and climate change and gross insects, and we're kind of ashamed of how long we've been putting off cleaning our apartment, so maybe we're not really “happy” per se.</p><p></p><p><a href="https://www.xojane.com/healthy/how-not-to-be-a-dick-to-someone-with-depression">Also depression is a totally different thing that you shouldn't be a dick about</a>.</p><p></p><p><strong>Don't Assume She's Becoming Lady Unabomber –- And Is Being A Crazy Cat Lady Really So Bad?</strong></p><p></p><p></p><div tml-image="ci01bb90dc6001a048" tml-image-caption="None of these are about how to make bombs."><figure><img src="http://a1.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI0ODUyNjkwMzIzNzc4MTc5.jpg" /><figcaption>None of these are about how to make bombs.</figcaption></figure></div><p>Because we're a misunderstood lot, and because the people who make things like movies and 24 news channels are extroverts, there are a lot of introvert stereotypes and they're usually kind of scary. But I promise you that, while I love to tweet about how great socialism is, I'm not building a bomb.</p><p></p><p>Yes, I own a couple low-powered rifles that are part of the legacy of my rural Southern upbringing, but I've never shot them at anything bigger than a Coke can, I'm not planning to get any others, and I'm certainly not stockpiling an arsenal.</p><p></p><p>We're quiet people who like to think things through, but that doesn't mean we're thinking of ways to poison you during awkward pauses in our conversations. Most of us aren't plotting to blow up any buildings, shoot up any schools, or any of the other terrifying things our introversion is seen as a sign of.</p><p></p><p>Also, cats are great in moderation.</p><p></p><p>Remember, introverts are people too, and if you have a friend who is one she'll be loyal and relatively drama-free if you can just avoid being a dick to her.</p>For an introvert, the only thing worse than the anxiety of dealing with people when we don't want to is the anxiety of wondering if our friends are going to get all butthurt about it.http://www.xojane.com/relationships/how-not-to-be-a-dick-to-your-introvert-friend
http://www.xojane.com/relationships/how-not-to-be-a-dick-to-your-introvert-friendRelationshipsThu, 01 Aug 2013 07:00:00 -0700J. J. UlmIT HAPPENED TO ME: I Let Some Kid I Met In An Online Game Move In With Me<!-- tml-version="2" --><p>The first time I saw my new roommate in person, it was after waving him down in front of my apartment building on a muggy August night. He had just driven hundreds of miles from his mother's home in New Jersey to live with some eccentric 31-year-old lesbian (that's me!) in Ohio, someone he had never met outside of the then-hugely-popular online game World of Warcraft. </p><p></p><p>It was a big, crazy risk for both of us. And everything worked out perfectly. More or less.</p><p></p><p></p><div tml-image="ci01bb90dca004c80a"><figure><img src="http://a2.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI0ODUyNjkxNjY1OTgyNzM4.jpg" /></figure></div><p></p><p>When we met in the online world, we were both on an RP server –- a little subset of the over 10 million-player population that rejected character names like Mahballz or Pwndu in favor of using the game's environment and community for storytelling and role playing. (The RP community was and still is pretty heavily female. Anyone who thinks women don't play WoW has never been on an RP server.)</p><p></p><p>He was smart and emotionally mature in a way teenagers rarely are. I was an aspiring fiction writer looking for a creative outlet who tended to click best with guys who weren't trying to sleep with her. He joined my guild and the two of us realized pretty quickly that our creative styles meshed perfectly: We delighted in dramatic but psychologically realistic stories that made our characters absolutely miserable. His PTSD-suffering elf knight and my twinkish zombie boy burdened with a cursed sword (just go with it) became fast friends and then lovers as we became comfortable enough with each other to trust things not to be misinterpreted.</p><p></p><p>Within a couple months, we were online best friends.</p><p></p><p>We were close enough friends for me to be worried about his home situation. He was 17, a senior in high school, and the last of his siblings living at home when his parents divorced. Things had been bad before –- he'd had to leave a big in-game multiplayer raid once because of his brother pulling a kitchen knife on their father -– but once he was alone with his mother things got worse. She moved them down to the Jersey Shore, where he had no friends and no real job prospects. For a couple months he had to commute over an hour each way so he could finish school without transferring, and the distance effectively cut him off from his local friends.</p><p></p><p>He also bore the brunt of his mother's emotional problems. Once he turned 18 and graduated from high school, he realized how hopeless things were for him. He was miserable, and he's told me since that if he hadn't moved away, he might have become suicidal.</p><p></p><p>In Ohio, I was facing my own problems. I had been living with untreated anxiety disorder all my life and it had led me to make some terrible decisions. Anxiety made me terrified of being single, and, not yet able to come to terms with my own homosexuality, I was stuck in a relationship with a guy a friend of mine later described as "not even close to your league."</p><p></p><p>I'll admit I was kind of terrible to him just from sheer lack of interest, but I was too scared of being alone to just end it. He hated my friendship with Zack because he was the sort of guy who couldn't imagine two people of the opposite sex NOT wanting to bang. He hated our characters' relationship even more because he couldn't comprehend a world in which it was not PROOF that we just wanted to bang.</p><p></p><p>I didn't care enough about him to change anything. He was a placeholder, a symptom of my mental illness, and so, regardless of whether he had any right to police my friendships, I didn't really listen.</p><p></p><p>Eventually, though, we reached a tipping point, and his jealousy toward my online friendships became a catalyst for constant fighting. I started feeling hopeless. I didn't want him or someone else like him to be my future, but I couldn't see any other path. I was still holding myself to society's timeline for life and success and all that crap, and being 30 and unmarried made me feel like a horrible failure.</p><p></p><p>I never quite reached the point of suicidal ideation. It was enough to lie down with a case of heartburn and find myself genuinely hoping it was a heart attack, or to stop looking when I crossed the street because I was simply out of fucks to give about my own continued existence. I knew I had to make a change before I became actively suicidal.</p><p></p><p>I helped Zack endure his mother, and he gave me moral support as I broke up with my boyfriend, kicked him out, got psychiatric help for my anxiety disorder, and accepted myself as a lesbian. I couldn't have done it without Zack's constant presence online reminding me that I had at least one very good friend out there, one who would be there for me without expecting access to my vag.</p><p></p><p>But when the dust cleared, I had a two-bedroom apartment all to myself and enough anxiety still floating around that living by myself in a ground-floor apartment where the window locks didn't work still freaked me out. It was a nice-ish neighborhood, one full of grad students from the nearby university, but a few of the adjacent apartments were vacant and I'd lie awake at night wondering if anyone could hear me scream if someone did break in.</p><p></p><p>My newly adopted pet ferret was a good companion but a terrible watchdog –- partly because he was stone deaf, but mostly because he was a ferret. So, even though I'd never met him in person, I took a chance on Zack. I wired him gas money, gave him super-detailed directions, and waited for him to show up on my doorstep.</p><p></p><p>I've never had children, but I imagine the way I worried over him as he drove further than he ever had before in a little Saturn with too many miles on it was a lot like a mother worrying over her kid's first road trip. I was working at my office job that day, but I gave him my phone number and he texted or called me at every stop.</p><p></p><p>That night, I talked him through the last few turns right up to my -– now our –- building. Once he arrived, I buried any nervousness over first impressions and focused on getting him settled. I ordered pizza, I scared him a little with my comic collection and sheer alpha-nerdiness, I helped him carry in the few boxes he'd brought with him, and then I stood around and listened while his mom threatened to call the police.</p><p></p><p>Zack hadn't actually told his mother he was leaving, not to her face. He didn't have it in him to deal with all the drama and criticism and accusations. So he left a note for her to find when she got home from work, which was shortly before he arrived in Ohio.</p><p></p><p>Once there, he had to deal with all the drama and criticism and accusations anyway, just with the benefit of being several hundred miles away. She did call the police, too, under the pretext of wanting the car back, and I paced around trying not to freak out at the idea that I might have some unpaid ticket out there that'd be pulled up and I'd end up spending a night in jail. But the poor cop just humored her, and after a good hour or so of shouting, things settled down enough to call it a night.</p><p></p><p>I got flak from the ex-boyfriend, too, who wanted to “just be friends” right up until I destroyed the last shred of hope he had that we could still have sex (which was several weeks after I told him I'm not actually sexually attracted to men, and even then I'm not sure he got the point). He had a key to the apartment because some of his stuff was still there, but I told him he could only keep it so long as he only came over when I told him it was okay.</p><p></p><p>The morning after Zack moved in, the ex thought we were both going out to run errands, so he decided to sneak in. I can only assume he was dying to prove to himself that Zack and I had totally spent the night going at it like wild monkeys. In reality what happened was that he scared the fuck out of Zack, who was there alone unpacking, and then literally ran away. At least I got my key back.</p><p></p><p></p><div tml-image="ci01bb90dcd001efe2" tml-image-caption="And somehow we still haven't killed each other."><figure><img src="http://a5.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI0ODUyNjkyMjAyODI2Mzcx.jpg" /><figcaption>And somehow we still haven't killed each other.</figcaption></figure></div><p></p><p>It's been nearly three years since he moved in, and Zack is still my best friend. There're a lot of things we don't see eye to eye on: He automatically assumes anything from the '80s is terrible until proven otherwise and I'm very much a child of the '80s, I can't stand most of his music and he calls The Cure “old people shit.”</p><p></p><p>But I've enjoyed introducing him to the best of everything from Fawlty Towers to craft beer (*cough*now that he's 21*cough*) and he considers me his Zombie Survival Plan. He realized after leaving New Jersey and his mother's Catholicism that he's gay (or at least gay-leaning bi, because we both agree that breasts are pretty amazing), and I fully supported him.</p><p></p><p>We love each other in a way that has nothing to do with sex or possessiveness, just pure friendship, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. I took a chance on him and it was the best thing that's happened to me.</p>Even though I'd never met him in person, I took a chance on Zack. I wired him gas money, gave him super-detailed directions, and waited for him to show up on my doorstep.http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/it-happened-to-me-i-let-some-kid-i-met-in-an-online-game-move-in-with-me
http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/it-happened-to-me-i-let-some-kid-i-met-in-an-online-game-move-in-with-meIt Happened To MeTue, 23 Jul 2013 08:00:00 -0700J. J. UlmI Didn't Realize I Was A Lesbian Until My Thirties And Here's Why<!-- tml-version="2" --><p></p><div tml-image="ci01bb9b3430019512"><figure><img src="http://a2.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI0ODY0MDYyNTkxODcxNjE5.jpg" /></figure></div><p></p><p>I was 31 years old, and I was single for the first time since high school. It was Saturday night, but my awesome single lifestyle so far consisted of dorking it up all night playing "World of Warcraft" and drinking a big can of Java Monster. I was about to realize something that would change my life.</p><p></p><p>As part of my decision to finally give the single life a try after a series of long-term but ultimately ill-fated relationships, I had gotten treatment for the anxiety disorder that had messed me up for most of my life. I had also started therapy. One of the questions that kept coming up in therapy was why I made the decisions I did about getting romantically involved with men.</p><p></p><p>I reversed the question: What did I want in a man?</p><p></p><p>If I threw out everything I had been taught by society to want, everything I had been told was attractive, if I rejected the idea that certain qualities were "out of my league," what would that man be like? I tried to picture some ideal mate beside me there in bed, someone lying next to me for post-coital cuddles, but all that came to me was a sort of generic, plastic blank of a man.</p><p></p><p>I considered for a moment that I might be asexual. Then, testing the bounds of this little mental exercise, I changed that person next to me to a woman.</p><p></p><p>I could almost hear some deeper part of my brain smack itself on the forehead. "YES," it said, "FINALLY you figured that out!"</p><p></p><p>I spent the night awake in bed going over my whole life story, trying to reconcile that idea.</p><p></p><p>It wasn't like I had never had feelings for another woman. I had a notoriously bad crush on a friend's girlfriend for a while. (She also realized later that she preferred the company of the laydeez, but sadly she lived very, very far away.) My boyfriend back then scoffed at my little crush, saying I just didn't know how to "be friends with girls."</p><p></p><p>I pushed it down as best I could. I justified my attraction to women as a byproduct of living in a society that tells us the female body equals sex. I justified my lack of attraction to men as a byproduct of favoring personality over looks.</p><p></p><p>Why did I DO that?</p><p></p><p>That was the next thing I wanted to know. I've always been eccentric. I've always accepted ways in which I just didn't fit in with any kind of general "normal." My parents always accepted that I was a little bit weird and a lot of a tomboy. But when it came to my sexuality I couldn't accept that I was outside the heterosexual norm. I couldn't take my own sexuality seriously.</p><p></p><p>The middle-aged lesbian has become a bit of a cliche. There's even been research done to try to figure out if women are actually a little more prone to biologically shifting to homosexuality as they age. And that's stupid. Yes, sexuality is a fluid thing, but women don't exist in a vacuum.</p><p></p><p>As someone who was unable to accept her own homosexuality until she was 31, I will tell you exactly why I came out as an adult:</p><p></p><p>I didn't know I had the choice.</p><p></p><p>I imagine it's easier for girls growing up now, who can see Ellen and Portia attending the Oscars, who hear all the time about women coming out and getting married where they can and having children or not and having good lives. When I was a teenager the only lesbians I was aware of were the Indigo Girls and one girl in the class below mine who got mad if you didn't acknowledge every new color she died her hair.</p><p></p><p>Growing up to be a lesbian seemed like something that just didn't happen to regular people, like growing up to be a fairy princess. I might have liked reading comic books and helping my dad work on cars, I may have enjoyed dressing androgynous, but by gosh I didn't think I was such a special snowflake that I could be something like a lesbian!</p><p></p><p>Teenage girls are taught about sex in a way that makes it seem like it's perfectly normal to want it and enjoy it less than the boy with whom you're having it. It's presented as something you do to keep the relationship going, and yeah, maybe it's not that great, but that's because you're with some stupid teenager who doesn't know what he's doing. I never thought anything of it.</p><p></p><p>And I was friends with boys, lots of them! That tends to happen when you're a huge tomboy. So when one of those boy-friends wanted it to become something more, I gave in because I enjoyed his friendship and hey, you're supposed to have a boyfriend, right?</p><p></p><p>Soon it became a defense mechanism. I stayed in long term relationships because our personalities clicked, yes, but also because it gave me an excuse to turn other boys away. I perfected the "boyfriend name-drop," strategically using the words "my boyfriend" when another guy got flirty. The untreated anxiety disorder made it even harder to break away. I was with a man, that was the only option, and if it made me miserable, what right did I have to complain?</p><p></p><p>Our culture doesn't ask women what they want, and that makes it hard for us to ask ourselves what we want. When we're told throughout our lives that we're supposed to grow up and get married (to a man!) and maybe have a job but definitely have babies, it becomes nearly impossible to question that.</p><p></p><p>We're taught that we're here to take care of others, and as good an idea as altruism is in general, that cripples us. Even on a smaller scale, I grew up in a rural area where most of the girls had children right out of high school and didn't aspire to much else.</p><p></p><p>As a child, I wasn't often asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, much less whether I wanted to marry a man or a woman. My family moved to the more progressive suburbs as I was entering junior high, but the damage had been done. I would date boys because girls date boys and I wouldn't really enjoy sex very much because girls don't really enjoy sex very much and perhaps, if I was lucky, I would someday find a fulfilling job that would let me also take care of the children that I would have whether I actually wanted them or not.</p><p></p><p>As the handmaidens in Game of Thrones say, "It is known."</p><p></p><p>So no, women my age aren't magically becoming lesbians. We're finally finding the power to ask ourselves, after decades of no one else asking, what we really want.</p>Growing up to be a lesbian seemed like something that just didn't happen to regular people, like growing up to be a fairy princess.http://www.xojane.com/sex/i-didnt-realize-i-was-a-lesbian-until-my-thirties-and-ive-thought-about-why
http://www.xojane.com/sex/i-didnt-realize-i-was-a-lesbian-until-my-thirties-and-ive-thought-about-whySex, Sex, Sex ... and LoveThu, 02 May 2013 12:00:00 -0700J. J. Ulm